Letter to My Rav: Between Two Worlds

(A month before his yarzheit.)

Dearest Rabbi,

I have so many words and so many tears, and neither wants to come- to show itself so I would know that I am mourning you. Instead, I get stomach aches and I sleep so very little and I go around feeling down and depressed when all I want to do is wail, if I remembered that it was you that I wail about.

Why can't I remember that it is you? Why can I not bring it to the forefront? Why does it linger in the shadows like an ill-willed ghost, taunting me instead of making its face known, even though I don't know what that face looks like? I think, though, that I am terribly afraid of it- after the numbness and the anger and the tears, where have I really gotten?

I remember all too vividly the things you said and the things you did before you died- the things I wished I'd seen and the things I wish I could change- but most of all- I WANT TO BRING YOU BACK- to haul you up from your grave and put you back among the living where you belong. If my heart were strong enough and big enough, I would will you back; I still want to will you back, and that's what is so painful, what cannot be faced.

Acceptance? What is that? Today I do not accept- I accept nothing. I do not accept that you are gone- will not- I cannot- I don't know why. I am alternately furious and helpless and speechless and forlorn, but nothing will bring you back. I don't even know why I want it so badly.

Perhaps because this life is your rightful place, not death. You, more than others, were life and brought life with you, and healing- everyone, except yourself. See, I still can't find the words to express what I really feel, what I really want to say.

I feel like I'm in this great, not unpleasant abyss- not unpleasant because I don't know I'm there- free falling, and yet I am close to the edge and might clamber my way out, and yet, I can't do it. I try and I try. But you are with me there, in that great black hole, and I can't drag you out of it, no matter what I do. So I stay with you- I'm crazy- better to be with you, I guess, than totally without you.

Rabbi, why did you do it? What could be so dire? Why why why? Why did you leave us all alone while you struggled to live and to die? Why did you leave us all out? See, these are not the right questions, either.

Can I tell you I loved you? Can I tell you how much you meant to me? Can I tell you what you gave me?

But then I think, what did I give you- it all seems so one-sided. If I had died, you would have gone on well without me. But I, well, it's hard, cause you were like a father to me and I can't tell you how much I bless you for that!!!!! To know true love at last, a father's love, and kindness and understanding, and to have someone there for me, someone who never let me down- who was everything I could of dream of as a father and a human being. No, you weren't perfect, but you were loving- such treasure. And I guess what I feel, most of all, is that I have lost treasure so great, so irreplaceable- I was so lucky and blessed to know you- I don't have the words.

My love screams in that abyss as well as the loss- if I could only shout you out.

Iloveyouiloveyouiloveyou...... that's all I know.